Signs of the Times

Signs of the Times

The global recession manifests itself in big & small ways, most gloomy, some quirky and often reflecting the inventive human spirit. Here is a look at some signs of the times.

• If your hedge fund has collapsed, the bank foreclosed on your mansion and the Bentley's been repossessed, don't worry, you can still toast the new year with caviar.Well, fake caviar. A supermarket chain in Britain is selling something it calls Arenkha MSC with a similar texture and taste to the much-prized sturgeon roe but at a fraction of the price. It says it combines "smoked herring with squid ink, lemon juice and spices."
  
• Cricketers and dogs are also feeling the pain in Britain. Mobile phone company Vodafone Group Plc announced it was ending its sponsorship of the English cricket team, part of moves to cut 1 billion pounds ($1.52 billion) in costs. Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, the country's best-known animal refuge, said it was filled to bursting point, partly because of the financial crisis.
  
• Even the Queen of England is feeling the pinch. "The Sun"newspaper said Queen Elizabeth had mounted a sale at the gift shop at her Balmoral estate in Scotland, offering up to 50 percent cuts. Bargain hunters could buy a Prince Charles glossy landscape painting book for 10 pounds ($15). A bottle of Balmoral Whisky was cut by 6 pounds ($9) to 24 pounds ($36).
  
• In Moscow, the Niyama Japanese restaurant is pegging the price of a fixed-menu lunch to the country's benchmark stock index, the RTS. The "RTS lunch" costs 27 percent of the RTS index's daily opening level. If it opens at 690 points, as it did on Tuesday, the meal would cost 186.50 roubles (about $7). Had the offer been available at the market's peak in May, it would have been about four times the price.
  
• High-end consignment stores, where the once-rich try to unload their Gucci bags and Rolexes, have been swamped.
  
• Tokio 7, ranked one of New York's best second-hand shops, is turning down all but the best new consignments. "Business if very, very slow. Customers are very scared. Everyone needs a little money," said owner Makoto Watanabe.
  
• In Singapore, second-hand luxury watch dealers say customers are lowering their sights. Where they used to go for a Patek Philippe that can cost over S$10,000 (about $6,800), shoppers opt for models under S$5,000 (about $3,400). "Business has gone down about 20 to 30 percent," said Alvin Lye of Monster-Time.
  
• In Tokyo, many people are choosing the tubby "daruma"dolls, often given as good luck charms to someone starting a new business, not in the traditional red but in black. They hope it might portend their accounts will stay out of the red.
  
• Some American couples are being driven by the financial crisis to sell their wedding and engagement rings. The website idonowidont.com, originally conceived as a way for survivors of failed relationships to move on and make some cash at the same time, has experienced a 145 percent spike in traffic this fall, said David Becker, the site's chief executive officer.
  
• With unemployment spreading like a virus, Slovenia's national Employment Service has formed mobile units that will visit companies announcing losses to sign up the newly jobless, making it easier for them to get unemployment benefits.
  
• Greenwich, Connecticut, an upscale bedroom community for Wall Street and unofficial capital of the hard-hit hedge fund world, is, like thousands of U.S. towns, facing a big budget shortfall in 2009. Greenwich's deficit is projected at $31 million in the next 18 months, prompting proposed wage and hiring freezes and property tax hikes.